"Nothing else was touched, only the container holding yours was breached. All the others, as pristine as the day they were sealed. But I talked to the captain about it before I left and he's going to let everyone make the choice for themselves. He won't force any of them to do anything, one way or another. I did mention that if they do decide to get rid of the current and start a new batch, we should donate it to the blood bank for the Vhampires. Anything in the blood won't affect them at all, disease or drugs."
"That's a good idea." She sighed and shook her head. "Please tell me that the two of you will start fresh?" she asked hopefully. "Because I'm terrified he will do something to you both and that would destroy me. I can't lose the either of you, not now. Not ever. Please?"
"We'll ensure our reserves are donated," Ansell said while Zhubin nodded in obvious agreement. "We're not willing to take the risks either, Lacey. We both plan on having a nice long and very healthy life with you. So we shall get rid of the current stores and start new as soon as we can manage."
"Thank you," she whispered softly. "For understanding." She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against Ansell once more. She yawned. "I'm not feeling sick to my stomach but I am feeling so very, very sleepy. I hate that, but there it is."
"Then we will not do anything tonight. Sleep, Lacey. We can always go to the clinic in the morning or even see if Briar will take a look at you." Ansell stroked her hair back and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "You are not nearly as warm as earlier, perhaps it was nothing more than one of those twenty-four-hour type flus and you are already on the mend."
"No. I want to go to the clinic and get the shot. I want to get past this bloody icky nasty feeling," she said with a shrug. "The sooner we get the shot, the sooner I can feel better, right?" she asked softly. She latched onto what Ansell said and smiled. "That would be wonderful. Maybe I just need sleep. It's very possible. I haven't been sleeping well as you both know." On this side of the Veil she tended to not rest, when they were on the other side it was as if she had come home and slept like the dead.
"Then sleep, we will go to the clinic in the morning before our shifts." Zhubin squeezed her leg gently. "Sleep, baby. We'll move you upstairs in a bit and we'll all get some sleep." A moment later the large, warm throw that usually resided on the back of the sofa, was draped over her to keep her warm.
"Oh, that was just playing dirty," she whispered and shifted against Ansell. Lacey was shortly sound asleep. The heat of his body, the touch of Zhubin's hand to her knee and the blanket wrapped around her. She couldn't fight the need to rest with that combination, at all.
Chapter Fourteen
It wasn't even morning and someone was calling. She could hear the very insistent and annoying ringing of a phone. It had to be one of the cell phones they were all currently using. Zhubin and Ansell both had the implants but had deactivated the phone portion while stalking her stalker. They hadn't wanted to give him any way to track them so disposable and heavily encoded cell phones were all they were using. Besides that, she'd never hear the damn things ring even if they had, rung that was.
"Yeah," Zhubin's voice said as the annoying sound was killed. She felt him rolling toward the edge of the bed, bouncing her around slightly. "What? Where the fuck would someone get that?" he hissed into the phone.
Ansell moved to a sitting position, obviously picking up on the hostility rolling off of Zhubin. Not exactly subtle, her Zhubin, especially at whatever horrid early morning hour it was.
"Fuck, yeah, we'll be there soon." More rustling and bouncing, "Shit. Lacey, love, you need to wake up. We have to go into headquarters now. And by now I mean, yester-fucking-day."
Lacey frowned and shifted slightly. Pushing her hair out of her eyes she watched him. "Okay, why?" She yawned again and wanted to just curl up and sleep some more, but she couldn't. Not with Zhubin carrying the look that he was right now.
Reaching out a shaky hand toward him, she frowned. "Talk to me, honey. What's going on?" And then in excitement she asked, "Did they catch him? Is that it? Do we get to go in because they have caught this son of a bitch?"
"No, we haven't caught anyone yet," he said, shoving his hand through his hair. "We have a hell of a lot worse situation going on. That residue in the envelope was some form of poison. Which is now in your system. It's only designed to take out humans and is a redesigned and messed up version of something our scientists had designed for chemical warfare against your people. It was never used, obviously, and all stores were supposed to be destroyed. Apparently they were not and this psychopath got his hands on a batch, screwed with it and now it's trying to kill you. We need to get you to the office and to Briar and the others. They are already working on something but we need to go, now."
"What?" Lacey shook her head and frowned. "How in the hell is that possible?" She rose from the bed and swayed on her feet slightly. "Right. Okay. Time to get ourselves to the office so that we can have Briar have a look at me. Let's hope that they have whatever I need to take in order to get me feeling better so we can catch this asshat."
Nodding, both men began to dress and helped her to dress as well. When they were all as ready as they were going to be they piled into Zhubin's truck and headed for the office. It was a short drive, traffic was light and he was driving very fast. Very fast.
Lacey was watching the skies as they raced into the office. Her mind was whirling round and round. She was uncertain as to what to do next. She didn't know what in the world they would do to catch this asshat that was tracking her and wanted to kill her. "How do we catch him?" she asked softly.
"He made a fatal mistake," Ansell said quietly. "He directly attacked you. Now he will have to deal with us and all the Luhpyne that call us friend and family. We will hunt him down and he will suffer things that no one could even dare to imagine."
"I've called in one of our best trackers to take a whiff of the envelope. If there is even the smallest trace of this asshole's scent on it, he'll pick it up. His nose is about twenty times better than Ansell's and we know just how good his is." Yes, they did. Ansell's sense of smell had saved their bacons a couple of times.
"Good." Lacey sighed and leaned back against Ansell once more, her eyes closed in exhaustion. "Well as long as they can get a bead on this asshole I will be a happy woman," she muttered. "I just want to find the asshat and put him under the ground." Dammit. She was being rather bloodthirsty but she didn't care. Dammit.
"In many different locations across many different worlds," Ansell muttered. Okay, maybe she didn't have the market on bloodthirsty. She felt him press a kiss to her temple and hug her closer to him. "For fucking with our mate, his will be a slow and very painfully long death."
"Good. I know that's bad but I want whoever it is to pay for what they did to me, to us. I really hope that they will be able to fix me," she whispered.
"They will," Zhubin said. His tone suggested that the doctors better or there'd be a lot of death and dismemberment in the near future. A quick cut of the steering wheel and they were driving down into the bowels of the underground parking. A few hair-raising turns, a few squeals of the tires and they came to a rocking stop in his parking spot. Both men were out of the truck quickly and Ansell just scooped her up, kicking the door shut even as he started to stride for the elevator with her.
She didn't argue, she was far too tired and felt far too sick to her stomach to argue and complain with the man carrying her around. Her hand lifted and rested against his chest, her fingers lightly stroking over his chest as she whispered, "I love you. Both of you. Always know that?"
"We know it and you'll be telling us that for many years to come." Stepping into the elevator he turned so she was between his body and Zhubin's. "Just as we will be telling you how much we love you each and every day. That and how you get under our skin, drive us batty and generally make our lives more interesting with every breath you take."
"You can bet your cute butt that I'm going to be telling you both that for the rest of time." She grinned and sighed. "Good. Just never let me forget," she teased him. "I look forward to each moment, each second with you both. I want everything in life with you both. Family, life, everything."